Summer that was no summer

Last summer was no summer - I did not manage to get my travel papers renewed on time and had to stay in the hot sweaty York instead of long-awaited trip to Europe. I took two classes (Management and Accounting) during Session II and before I even passed my Management exam, my friend, a very talented director and set designer called me up to manage the production of one of his music videos. I enjoyed this experience immensely (AP-5), and it allowed me to make some money and afford to take a week-long trip to California and Nevada. First time at Burning Man festival was inspiring and mind-shaking - the best gift I could ask to properly celebrate my 5th anniversary in NYC, a brand new Green Card, first amazing creative job, a year of straight A's in school and the birth of a favorite nephew. Coming back to sunny and foggy San Francisco, with its ups, downs and "Painted ladies" rounded the trip off with the warmth of meeting with an old friend. 


Favorite book: Milorad Pavich "Khazarian Dictionary", B.Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago", Mikhail Bulgakov "Master and Margarita".
Favorite website: Netflix, Resident Advisor, Flavorpill, Abbyy Lingvo and Euronews
Favourite recording: Lee Burridge "I had a good life" 1.17
Favourite source of inspiration: Morning pages, expanding potential, aerialist acrobatics, knowledge high, spiritual "awe'
favourite movie: "The sea inside" Alejandro Amenabar, "Seraphine" Martin Provost, Amelie, W. Allen, Jim Jarmush, Goudard, Treufault.
The adjectives your friends would use to describe you: "Better than Nokia connecting people", "Walking Enciclopedia od Humour"
Favourite keepsake or memento: Per aspera ad astra
Favourite word: cross-inter-cosmopolitan

Class reflection.

I enjoyed the class a lot, and i must say, i wish there were more classes like that. I appreciate Dr Smith's nontraditional approach to the course material and big level of independence of research, low key and relaxed atmosphere in class. The blog form of our work presentation helped me switch from stiff academic writing to more casual, laid back style, allowed for some humor and multimedia. The most useful thing I learned from my research for class was my archetype - i turned out to be wanderer and magician. This information helped me embrace my never stopping self, relax and rather enjoy my wandering instead of guilt tripping because of disability to find home. I also enjoyed finding out about "Sleep no more", in fact, being pushed to learn more about this project resulted in my possible employment with the production company. Couldn't be better! :) Searching for Coraline, I also found a job few blocks from home, in a very special book store, which utilizes well my nerdiness and social nature. The final project allowed me to think and make up for the things I thought i was missing in my student experience. And the monomyth structure could not be a better pattern for the types of events I like to produce:)

What I have enjoyed learning from my fellow students most, were the diversity of interest and freedom in projection. What I am looking forward to try on my own, would be the monkey dance (capoeira) and text games. Also, I'd like to keep in touch with the graphic novel guy: I'm much more verbal than visual, and I need team mates who could turn my impressions into images. Frankly speaking, I didnt spend enough time and effort reading into my peer writing. If I could suggest how to make your great class even better, I would recommend to have students read aloud, in front of the class, their best pieces. Reading yourself aloud (can you even say so?:) is a weird, but necessary habit, and you could easily foster it. Also, to get students more involved with each other and promote critical thinking, I would suggest a task, where each student has to find and correct 10 mistakes in others' writing.

That's my class reflection. Now when I have accomplished all my student's tasks, I can go offline and write a story about getting homeless for 3 days:)

PS: please, do not forget to put me in contact with your game buddy!

Unopressive Non-imperialist Bargain Books

34 Carmine st, between Bleeker and Bedford, Greenwich Village, (A, C, E, B, D, F, M to West 4th)

Noam Chomsky screams out from the front desk and doesn't seem out of place in this Carmine Street back alley, remarkable for being one of the few remaining streets with real "old Village" charm, all the more so because of all the great cheap stuff. From biographies on Joyce to studies on Buddhism, tips on how to have great sex and read a tarot card (not at once), amazing picture books on art, and even a Monty Python CD-ROM, you should visit DROUGAS only when you have hours to devote. Highly recommended for anyone with writer's block or boredom or suffering from a complete lack of cash: Books start at $2 and don't go much higher.

4.1. Mistifiq Action in Progress.

Points I have in mind for the Freshman Treasure Hunt I am organizing so far include (but are not limited to):

1. library (message about the next point should be encoded in different languages, so the students translate it using multiple dictionaries. Team power!)

2. gym (healthy mind in healthy body) - yoga classes, swimming pool, independent workout

3. financial aid office - to help new students research all the opportunities of financing their education

4. scholarship office - as a team, the students will have to apply for a simple scholarship

5. ePortfolio center (access laguardia live email)

6.  B333 computer lab (find out calorie values of foods available)

7. healthy food options on campus or possibilities to warm up their own meals (where can one use microwave or get hot water for the tea bag instead of paying $1 every day). Fruit stand next to the E-building, soup in the cafeteria across B, cantina on the 3rd floor of the C-building with a microwave and a place to eat your own lunch

8. C 4th floor - chilling area with soft seats, quiet and full of light

The whole trip should not take more than 2 hours.

To match the course theme, i want to employ monomyth structure.

1. mystic call for adventure - Professor Smith has been kidnapped, the teams have to face the threat to get a mean prof substitute (introduce students to ratemyprofessor.com).
2. challenge: In order to get sweet Professor Smith back, students will have to leave their zone of comfort and manage a few challenges.
3. supernatural aid - campus map and a logo/sign that will let the teams know they are on the right path
4. threshold - research the opportunity to escape to the roof. If not possible - take elevator in E-building to the nice hall on the 5th floor, where Honor Students hold their meetings
5. mentor/helper - find people who are always there for you on the campus. Options: security headquarters in the E-building, library staff, archive stuff or the sweet lady selling fruits on the way to the 7 train stop
6. abyss - bursar office, notice of being suspended from classes due to non-payment.
7. transformation - after being suspended the students should re-evaluate the importance of their education, from slacker students turn into proper students, proactive rather than reactive
8. atonement - C107, financial aid office. If financial aid won't be enough, the team will have to proceed to the scholarship office and apply for a scholarship
9. return - the long hall in the M-building with all the flags hanging in. Incorporate the political map of the world and underline the value of cultural diversity in our Alma Mater
10. gift of the goddess - besides getting Professor Smith back, students' boon will be better knowledge of amenities available on campus and how to take full advantage of the premises, research skills, team work, useful shortcuts to finance their education and showing the advantages of high GPA/motivation to study harder, ways to eat healthy and deal with stress throughout sport activities.

After I post this blog entry, I will take the trip around the above mentioned locations and try to make the most efficient journey outline. (I need to find the map of the entire campus) I will have to make two itineraries over the same locations and find ways not to have both teams' directories overlap.I will have to match the locations with the stages of the hero's journey. I will also try to look for interesting places to hide my messages and try to come up with a fun and creative way to encode my messages - challenging, but decodable. I will also go throughout the whole process of application for financial aid/scholarship and try to make it into quiz. I might come up with a virtual student and make all tasks relevant to helping him solve the college problems.

3.5 Coraline revised

Coraline

Since published in 2002, Neil Gaiman’s horror fairytale “Coraline” has become a new favorite of both adults and kids, has received quite a few awards and was adopted as a 3-D animation and a graphic novel. The success and popularity of the book, the modern setting and the moral lessons Coraline learns throughout her adventure, as well as magic creatures she meets in the Other World became the reasons this novel has been compared to all-time favorite “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, which is the best compliment in itself.

In its structure, “Coraline” is a typical monomyth, or “hero’s quest”, as called by Joseph Campbell - the writer, who studied the similarities and structures of many heroic narratives and summarized his observations in his seminal work “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. According to Campbell, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man”. Same happens to our Coraline – she leaves her normal world on the mission to find her missing parents, she finds out the properties of the Other World to be able to fight the wicked beldam and save the kids she feeds on souls of, she returns home from her nightmare adventure and finds herself more mature, wiser, more affectionate and understanding of her parents and more appreciating of her realities. She also finds a few new friends – 2 kids, one angel and a black cat, and gains recognition and gratitude from her neighbors.

Joseph Campbell identifies 17 steps of the hero’s journey, and we find many of them in Gaiman’s “Coralline”. Her call for adventure happens in the 1st chapter, at night – Coraline follows the dark shadow to the drawing room with the mysterious brick wall. In the 2nd chapter she meets the neighbors. Two former actresses, Misses Spink and Forcible, tell her fortune on the tea leaves, letting her know that she is in gravely danger, and gift her with a stone with a hole in it – the supernatural aid. Her neighbor from upstairs, an old man with moustache, passes over a strange message to Coraline from his mice: “Don’t go through the door” – he whispered in her ear. Next day, in the 3rd chapter, Coraline comes back to the drawing room while her mother is away. Explorer by nature, Coraline doesn’t obey the old man’s advice and – alas! – goes through the secret door, which for some magic reason happens not to be bricked over anymore. The door is the threshold, the border between the real, the known, the normal and everything on the other side of the spectrum. In the apartment that seems to be identical to her own, she meets a couple, who resemble her own parents, but not really. The other parents look very pale and have black shiny buttons instead of their eyes. They feed her yummy lunch and treat her nicely, not like her own parents, who never had time for her! Outside of the other Apartment she meets the black cat, who turns out to be her Mentor/Helper. The cat does not have a name, but he can talk human language for some reason. She also meets her other neighbors – who seem to be somewhat similar to the real ones, but with slightly different energy. After she explores the Other World and finds it ‘more interesting”, the Other Mother offers to saw buttons in Coraline’s eyes, for her to be able to stay in the Other World forever. This idea does not sound too appealing to the girl, and she comes back to the real world (refusal of the call) to realize, to her deep grief and worry, that her real parents are missing.

In the 5th chapter the black cat wakes Coraline up and brings her to the mirror in the corridor, where she sees her parents, “sad and alone” (p.53). This is the call the girl cannot refuse: she pulls herself together, braves up and sets herself up to save her parents from the other side of the mirror. She finds herself in the portal between the two worlds (belly of the whale), which “smells of dust and damp and mustiness” (p.59). Her Other Mother tricks the girl and keeps the key from the door, after having it locked. Coraline has no other choice but to get her adventure on (the road of trials).

In the 7th chapter Coraline finds herself carefully exploring the Other World and finding differences from the reality. She notices the ball of glass, a snow globe, on the mantelpiece in the drawing room, something that the real apartment did not have. From the conversation with the cat she finds out that the Other Mother is determined to keep her there and prepares for a tough battle. After Coraline calls her “sick and evil and weird” (p.78), the other Mother locks her in the world on the other side of the mirror (apotheosis or abyss), where the girl meets her new friends – “three shapes, each as faint and pale as the moon in the daytime sky” (p.84). Chatting to her new buddies she finds out that the wicked beldam “stole their hearts, and stole their souls, and took their lives away” (p.84) – which gives her heads up on what would happen to her if she let the other mother saw the black buttons into her eyes. Terrified and full of compassion, Coraline decides to try to save the souls of the poor kids, as well as her own parents’. “Look through the stone” - she hears whispered with a “barely-there” voice right into her ear, and it was a good piece of advice (Mentor/Helper).

In the 8th chapter Coraline sets up the rules of the game with the Other Mother: “ If I lose I’ll stay here with you forever and I’ll let you love me.” – …“And if you do not lose?” – “Then you let me go. You let everyone go – my real father and mother, the dead children, everyone you’ve trapped here”. The game outlines Coraline’s entire challenge. Throughout the next few chapters the girl fearlessly goes through her adventure – exploring room after the room, inspecting every corner through the stone with the hole in it. Every now and then she finds glowing marbles, “glowing gently, like a green coal” (p.95). In the cellar of the empty apartment she finds her Other Father (atonement with the father) and has to pull all her guts together to be able to obtain the marble he was holding. She also realizes the incredible super powers of the Other Mother manipulating the Father to hurt her. But as she goes along her road of trials, she finds out that every little victory makes the wicked beldam weaker and weaker – the house flattens out, as if in one dimension; the Other World seems to be gradually collapsing. In the apartment upstairs the old man with the moustache tempts her to stay in the Other World: “Stay here with us, we will listen to you, and play with you and laugh with you. Your other mother will build whole worlds for you to explore. […] Every day will be better and brighter than the one before” (p.119) (woman as temptress). After she collects all the marbles, something tells her, that her parents must have been trapped in the snow globe on the mantelpiece, and she manages to save them. She tricks the Other Mother to open the door for her and manages to escape with the help of the black cat. The way back to the real world seems to be scarier and longer than anything, but Coraline is brave and determined (the crossing of the return threshold).

When back at home, she finds her parents sane and safe, and meets the children from the world behind the mirror. Her new friends - the 2 kids who look very old-fashioned, an angel feeding on flowers (meeting with the goddess) and the affectionate black cat - are the ones to save her from her real world boredom, her neighbors are so proud and thankful to her, and these are the boons she gets after her journey. Last but not least, her general appreciation of life becomes more acute, it seems like she will never be bored again. And when she comes to the real father’s study and gives him a kiss, he picks her up and gives her a swirl, which he had not done in a while, which symbolizes the mutual affection and love within the family. But even after coming back to the real world, she still faces the Other Mother - her restless hand trying to get back the black key from the Other World. Finally, Coraline tricks the Other Hand to jump into a deep hollow well not far away from the house, calling the nightmare over.

I really enjoyed learning about monomyth through analyzing Coraline’s adventures in the Other World. I can really see the features of the hero quest in many other narratives: films, books, stories, animations. I saw the animation of the book before I actually read the original, and I must admit: the creative team behind this 3-D feature animation did an incredibly good job! I really did like the story too, a lot – it’s written in a simple, but sophisticated language, it is very visual and holds message for kids as well as adults.

4.1: Mistifiq Action in Progress

Points I have in mind for the Freshman Treasure Hunt I am organising so far include (but are not limited to):

1. library (message about the next point should be encoded in different languages, so the students translate it using multiple dictionaries. Team power!)

2. gym (healthy mind in healthy body) - yoga classes, swimming pool, independent workout

3. financial aid office - to help new students research all the opportunities of financing their education

4. scholarship office - as a team, the students will have to apply for a simple scholarship

5. ePortfolio center (access laguardia live email)

6.  B333 computer lab (find out calorie values of foods available)

7. healthy food options on campus or possibilities to warm up their own meals (where can one use microwave or get hot water for the tea bag instead of paying $1 every day). Fruit stand next to the E-building, soup in the cafeteria across B, cantina on the 3rd floor of the C-building with a microwave and a place to eat your own lunch

8. C 4th floor - chilling area with soft seats, quiet and full of light

The whole trip should not take more than 2 hours.

To match the course theme, i want to employ monomyth structure.

1. mystic call for adventure - Professor Smith has been kidnapped, the teams have to face the threat to get a mean prof substitute (introduce students to ratemyprofessor.com).
2. challenge: In order to get sweet Professor Smith back, students will have to leave their zone of comfort and manage a few challenges.
3. supernatural aid - campus map and a logo/sign that will let the teams know they are on the right path
4. threshold - research the opportunity to escape to the roof. If not possible - take elevator in E-building to the nice hall on the 5th floor, where Honor Students hold their meetings
5. mentor/helper - find people who are always there for you on the campus. Options: security headquarters in the E-building, library staff, archive stuff or the sweet lady selling fruits on the way to the 7 train stop
6. abyss - bursar office, notice of being suspended from classes due to non-payment.
7. transformation - after being suspended the students should re-evaluate the importance of their education, from slacker students turn into proper students, proactive rather than reactive
8. atonement - C107, financial aid office. If financial aid won't be enough, the team will have to proceed to the scholarship office and apply for a scholarship
9. return - the long hall in the M-building with all the flags hanging in. Incorporate the political map of the world and underline the value of cultural diversity in our Alma Mater
10. gift of the goddess - besides getting Professor Smith back, students' boon will be better knowledge of amenities available on campus and how to take full advantage of the premises, research skills, team work, useful shortcuts to finance their education and showing the advantages of high GPA/motivation to study harder, ways to eat healthy and deal with stress throughout sport activities.

After I post this blog entry, I will take the trip around the above mentioned locations and try to make the most efficient journey outline. (I need to find the map of the entire campus) I will have to make two itineraries over the same locations and find ways not to have both teams' directories overlap.I will have to match the locations with the stages of the hero's journey. I will also try to look for interesting places to hide my messages and try to come up with a fun and creative way to encode my messages - challenging, but decodable. I will also go throughout the whole process of application for financial aid/scholarship and try to make it into quiz. I might come up with a virtual student and make all tasks relevant to helping him solve the college problems.

3.4 Mystifique Action -- Treasure Hunt

Imagine: you come to your English 101, the first class you have to take in college. Professor Smith excuses himself and steps out, when the lights go dim, and mysterious voice from the middle of nowhere: A-HA-HA-HA-HA...
The class finds out that their sweet Chris Smith (Professor Xmas) was kidnapped and about to be substituted by the meanest English prof on campus. To get the sweet Prof Xmas back, the class has to split into 2 groups and get on the path to adventure... (to relate to the theme of the course I design the Hunt as a monomyth).

The purpose of this trip is  to accommodate new students and make campus feel like their new home. Unfortunately, LaGuardia misses out on a good presentation of the school facilities to "the fresh meat", and with my treasure hunt i will try to bridge this gap, making teams of students visit library and writing center, gym and financial aid office, apply for a scholarship and find something healthy to eat in the nearby areas. The project will underline the importance of team effort and basic scholar concepts. I'm kinda excited, do you like it? :D

What I have done already is I made a list of suggested places to visit and hide the messages in. I really want to take some time wondering around in the school and maybe find more things to show to the new generation of students. What is going to be most challenging (and my favourite part) is to encode the messages, inspire creative thinking, give hints and clues, but not give out the next place too easy - make them THINK, analyze, troubleshoot. The "boon" will be not only getting the sweet Prof Xmas back, but also getting a much better knowledge of what campus has to offer and, hopefully, a much more productive school time at LaGuardia...